THE FIRST ECOSOCIALIST INTERNATIONAL
WEAVING OURSELVES TO MOTHER EARTH
OCTOBER 31 – NOVEMBER 3, 2017
CUMBE OF VEROES, BOLIVARIAN REPUBLIC OF VENEZUELA
It has been one year since “The Calling of the Spirits” in Monte Carmelo, Lara, when with spirited minds and seeds in our hearts, we launched a convocation titled “The Cry of Mother Earth.” Those who responded to this cry are now here: around 100 people from 17 countries and five continents, 12 original peoples from Our America, and ecosocialist activists from 14 states of Venezuela. We are here in the Cumbe* of Veroes, cradled in the enchanted mountains of Yaracuy, where the guardian goddess of nature lives. From the 31st of October until today, the 3rd of November, 2017, we have done the work demanded of us: the articulation of a collective strategy and plan of action for the salvation of Mother Earth.
We have made the decision and the collective commitment to constitute the First Ecosocialist International. To reverse the destructive process of capitalism, we will return to our origins, recuperate the ancestral spirituality of humanity, live in peace, and end war.
We recognize that we are only a small part of a spiral of spirals, which has the profound intention to expand and include others, until all of us are rewoven with Mother Earth; to restore harmony within ourselves, between us, and between all the other sister beings of nature.
The First Ecosocialist International is not just another gathering, nor another reunion of intellectuals to define ecosocialism. We believe that ecosocialism will define itself to the extent that it is reflected and conceptualized in praxis; from what ecosocialists do, to what ecosocialist militants are. Neither is the First Ecosocialist International a single organization with a seal, or with the omnipresent danger of becoming a bureaucracy. It is simply a common program of struggle, with moments of encounter and exchange, which anyone may join by committing themselves to fulfilling one or more of the various actions agreed upon in order to relieve our Mother Earth. No person or process is owner or protagonist of that which is done and achieved collectively.
We convoke all the peoples, movements, organizations, collectives and beings in the world to adhere to the First Ecosocialist International, and to assume the collective construction of a curriculum for the salvation of Mother Earth. By reinstating a lost spirituality we may arrive at a new one; a new and sometimes ancient ecosocialist ethic, sacred and irreverent, fed by the sun of conscience. We are recreating our spirituality, with a new imagination, with a new heartbeat, which leads to unity and diversity. Because right now we are only surviving, we are not living. The understanding and practice of this new spirituality will have the power to repel empire and capitalism which are powered by greed, and it will be able to strengthen our peoples and cultures which are conditioned by necessities. We confront a contradiction: restore life, or lead it to extinction. We must choose.
We don’t have any doubts. We are radicals; we shall return to our original ways, to our roots, seeing the past not only as a point of departure but also as a point of arrival.
A collective birth, a loving upbringing, we are an immortal embryo…
To dream and act without sleeping!
*Cumbe: A territory of resistance dedicated to an intercultural way of life; a form of organization, production and insurgency pioneered by maroons; based on ancestral principles of solidarity and reciprocity and not in competition.
- COLLECTIVE STRATEGIES AND PLAN OF ACTION -
As daughters and sons of Mother Earth and the commanding people, we had concluded in the preparatory process, as we wrote clearly in the convocation to this First Ecosocialist International, that “the social relation of greed – for which there are too many people and not enough planet for the accumulation of profits to continue – has generated a global crisis. A total war against life has been launched in order to eliminate the surplus and to control the scarcity that this social relation have falsely conceived.” Those of us who responded to the Cry of Mother Earth know and understand that in reality the only surplus is this system, and that what is lacking is not an alternative to this system, nor the necessity of creating another possible world nor other new models, but to recognize that we are the original model; that they cheated us, made us dazed and confused and imposed their counter-model, their alternative to our ways of living based on ancestral principles and practices, which those of us here either never lost, or are in the process of reclaiming.
Based on this, and on the transformative actions of the organizations, collectives and movements who form part of the First Ecosocialist International, who adhere to its plan of action, we shall first of all listen to and accompany the struggles of the original peoples of the five continents of the world, in the recuperation of their ancestral lands, cultures and spiritualities, recognizing them as our elder sisters and brothers, as our highest elders, and as the first and original ecosocialists in the world. We are fully conscious that to continue on the path that humanity has been walking over thousands of years is the best way to imagine the thousands of years ahead. For this reason, many of the actions contained in this plan are framed in this context.
The earth receives heat from the sun, and should return a part of this heat through the atmosphere. However, due to the gases produced by big capital such as carbon dioxide, this heat cannot be returned, and the resulting warming causes the melting of the poles. Many parts of the South Pole have melted, .... the disappearance of the arctic ice causes accelerated warming, as the mirror shrinks which reflects the heat from the sun. Another danger is that with the warming of the tundra and the North Pole, methane is being released, and if this continues to escape it will cause an irreversible catastrophe. There are corporations who are happy about this warming, because they want to exploit this area for oil.
Global warming has caused many hurricanes, tornadoes, etc. The recent floods in Central America are caused by this phenomenon, along with the melting of ice in the mountain ranges of the world. For example, in the Cordillera of the Andes, we see that there are fewer springs, which affects the farmers in the region. Rivers become ever thinner, and this effects the surrounding populations and their ecosystems. Therefore we must fight the capitalist enterprises which are causing the greenhouse effect.
Another example is Lake Titicaca, which receives water from various rivers, and the River Desaguadero, which drains from it. This river carries water from Lake Titicaca to Lake Poopo, which has completely disappeared; and all over the world there are lakes which will probably disappear. The situation of ecosystems in general is alarming, and for this reason many of the actions contained in this plan are directed towards reversing this situation.
If the situation of Mother Earth is grave in relation to the loss of the biosphere, it is equally so in relation to the loss of the ethnosphere. Every day the last speaker of an ancestral language dies. The cultural diversity of the symbolic systems where the cultures, myths, legends, oral traditions and songs of many peoples are encoded, is today under grave threat at the hands of a hegemonic globalization and the cultural imposition of patriarchal and anthropocentric western modernity, which loots, dominates, and destroys life. With the certainty that there are other ways of thinking and feeling, other intellectual and spiritual beliefs and ways of relating to our Mother Earth, we define here many collective actions focused on resolving this desolate panorama.
As members of popular organizations who form parts of the First Ecosocialist International, who are opposed to the domination which confronts us in competition and war, we propose to accompany with strength and real relationships the anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles which the peoples of the world are fighting; putting ourselves at the service of their recognition and liberation, so that their words may move the solidarity of nations. Thus we shall speak the truth and teach the truth about the empire and capitalism which are destroying life; to remove their disguises, to recognize them and identify them as our enemies. Ecosocialism symbolizes insurgency and love, it is spiritual, pluri-cultural and multi-ethnic, and it teaches decolonization and anti-imperialism. Finally, we define here a Route of Struggle, where we propose several actions and reunions.
The logic of the system which murders life is cunning; it robs us to feed itself, and disguises itself to continue existing. To escape from this logic and its ability to constantly recycle itself, we have decided to adopt a pluricosmovisionary perspective.*
We invite everyone, who like us believes in this dream, and who walk their talk to achieve it, to commit themselves to the fulfillment of this plan. Let us do this on the foundation of the heroic resistance of our peoples, who have kept alive their old ways, their native forests, and their sources of clean water. Let us do it with our own seeds and our ancestral cosmovisions, without poisons or patrons!
We have distributed our proposals amongst the five elements: Ether, Water, Earth, Fire and Air, interwoven into the spirit, the milk, the body, the energy and the voice of Mother Earth; harvesting our ancestral cultures so that they may be dispersed as seeds throughout the four sacred directions of the world.
These actions are proposed for the short term (a time of struggle), for the medium term, (a time of construction), and the long term (a time of utopia), understanding the long term as approximately 500 years, or a Pachakutik (an era in the Aymara calendar).
*Pluricosmovisionary: A plurality of visions of the cosmos, or worldviews; a perspective which goes beyond the “multidisciplinary” or the “transdisciplinary,” which combine the perspectives of various disciplines, but within the same western and academic epistemology.
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